


The Hunter

by Isamajor



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Animal Death, Blood, Bows & Arrows, Gen, Hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 19:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isamajor/pseuds/Isamajor
Summary: Sniper decides to leave the base and going on a hunt, despite the cold. The chilly weather didn't seem to bother the game, but the Aussie had some difficulties to adapt himself to the weather.





	The Hunter

Autumn was already far advanced. The cold began to be felt but the forest’s thick vegetation stopped the icy wind and prevented it from creeping into the undergrowth. Here was where the hunter waited, armed with a bow and a dozen arrows. A hood was pulled over his head, covering his face. He didn’t like to wear this kind of thing as it hampered the optimal range of his hearing. Even though the forest was less windy than the exposed valley, it already was freezing cold and his poor ears couldn’t withstand the frost’s needles that pricked them. Thus, he resolved to this necessity of covering his head. Unfortunately, coming from a hot and dry country like Australia, he always had the greatest difficulty enduring the cold. Other may come up to that well, maybe. But not him. The icy winds of the northern United States to him seemed much more hellish than the torrid summer of his native bush. However, this more than chilly weather didn’t seem to disturb the wild game that simply adapt to it with a winter coat while he, poor human, had to multiply the layers of coats stolen from corpses of their former owners.

He had taken advantage of a work break stipulated in one of his numerous mercenary contracts to leave thebase and go hunting, despite the cold. He couldn’t help it. Nothing in the world was worth that feeling of freedom he felt when he was alone and surrounded by nature. And the vastness of the forest area where he was now strengthened this sentiment. He would the day walking in the woods, careful not to rustle any leaves, strading across uplands, to finally get perched on a rock. From there, he observed the valley below, to watching the animals without shooting an arrow, just to enjoying the beauty of their sudden passage.

Of course, sometimes he killed. But he was careful to track down his prey towards the end of the day, at dusk, when animals came out of their hiding. If he shoot down prey too early in the day, he would have had to carry it with him throughout his getaway, and that would severely limit his pleasure.

The one thing that he loved above all was, finding the perfect spot : a height with an unobstructed of the clear horizon below, where there should be a cover for him to hide in. And once he found the place he was looking for, he settled down and readied himself to spend hours without moving and scrutinizing the area with his keen eyesight. His bowstring was half tense and loaded, ready in case an interesting prey comes along or a potential enemy suddenly appears.

Rewarding a long wait, a buck suddenly came in sight. The hunter’s aim was confident, his bow creaked slightly and then, his arrow whistled. Death was at the end of arrow’s tip, killing more surely than a bullet that exploded at the slightest resistance. The beast collapsed in silence, pierced in the eye, its run-up broken, leaving it no time to suffer, and no time to understand that it was the prey to another animal with long legs, big blue eyes and lethal precision.

The man stood up, stretched for a long time and rubbed himself vigorously to revive his aching limbs that have remained motionless, lying in wait in the cold. Then smoothly, sure-footed and without noise, he descended from his perch to reach the dead deer whose still warm body seemed to smoke. Once near to the beast, he knelt beside it, checking if it was dead. Then he patted its flanks with his fingertips, and then, more frankly, dipped his palm in the soft warm fur. He retrieved from of his pocket a small sharp knife and began to remove the arrow from the eye of the beast. Next he suspended it from its feet at the nearest tree with some of the rope he always carried around with him. He bled it by slicing its throat, the proceeded to open the buck’s belly, slicing it with his knife in a downward movement. He then removed its guts and other organs. A cloud of steam and a pungent odor surrounded him quickly. The blood almost seemed to burn on his hands’ ice-cold skin. It was warm, moist, and so nice to feel when one was cold as he. The smell of the warm flesh instinctively made him salivate and gave him an appetite, almost wanting to bite into the raw flesh.

But he restrained from these animal instincts, and settled for cleanly gutting the beast. At the base of a huge tree a few steps away, the hunter dropped off the entrails, the heart, the liver, the lungs and the kidneys. He certainly would have kept these parts, some which were noble, but out of superstition or respect for Mother Nature, he made gift of everything that was inside the deer to wild beasts, that will feed on it as soon as he left. With his offering made, he hastened to untie the carcass and load it on his shoulders. He had to find his van before the night came lest he get lost, be swallowed by the dark with the cold to freeze him in her arms draped in fall fabric he found too similar to the deadly winter.


End file.
